Apophenia
by Erik's Champion
Summary: Six weeks before Kaiba disappears from Jounouchi's life forever. Six weeks until Kaiba completely loses his mind. Jounouchi now finds himself pressed for time to uncover the truth behind Seto's icy demeanor. However, as he penetrates deeper into his past, he finds that the truth is far stranger than he ever could have imagined. Hints of SetoxJounouchi and SetoxIsis
1. Chapter 1

**Apophenia** – seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data

-xxx-

Five years later, Seto finally replaced the portrait in the hall. Yet another piece of evidence, he thought to himself as he aligned the mountings and hammered the nails, that if he wanted something done correctly he would have to do it himself.

Five months earlier, he had entered the Kame Game Shop for what he had thought was the final time, and through the unlikely chain of events that had transpired as a result, that sentiment had been proven to be almost entirely incorrect.

-xxx-

"Don't you take one step closer, boy! Keep your hands where I can see them! I'll have you know that I'm one false move away from triggering a silent alarm that will have the full force of the Domino City police here in moments!"

Seto rolled his eyes as he gently placed his briefcase on the floor and shrugged off his trench coat. "I hope you realize that announcing that you're about to trigger a silent alarm completely misses the point," he seethed. "But for your information I'm not here to cause any trouble."

"I'd have to be a fool to fall for that one," Soloman snorted.

"Then this shouldn't be too difficult for you to follow," Seto muttered. "Look. If you would just calm down and listen to me—"

"Thugs, thieves, and hooligans are not, and never will be, welcome in my establishment!" Soloman gestured to a line of pictures lining the line behind him, over which the word 'BANNED' was scrawled in bold red letters. Studying the images, Seto could see that they were composed primarily of stills of overly enlarged and painfully pixelated security camera footage of shoplifters and vandals. And among them, situated directly below the first 'N' in 'BANNED,' sat Seto's own smugly smiling face, encased in a wreath of lime green bangs.

"That's not even a recent picture," he muttered, mostly to himself.

"I've reported and locked up more of you delinquents than you can shake a stick at, and unless you want to join them, I suggest—"

"Grandpa? Is everything okay?" Yuugi came rushing in from the back room, eyes wide with concern, with Jounouchi following closely behind him.

"Everything is fine." Kaiba insisted. "If your buffoon of a grandfather would just listen—"

"Oh, I'm the buffoon?!" Soloman cried. "I'm not the one who had the audacity to show his face in this establishment after robbing me blind—I haven't forgotten about that you know!" He waved a menacing finger in Kaiba's direction.

"I noticed."

"Grandpa, Kaiba-kun is our friend now." Yuugi began cautiously. "He wouldn't dream of harming any of your treasures now."

"And besides, if he does we'll punch his face in for you, Grandpa," Jounouchi added. "You don't have anything to worry about."

Soloman took a moment to consider, fixing his gaze alternatively on Yuugi's appeasing face, Jounouchi's devilish grin, and Kaiba's tensed jaw and shoulders.

"Well, I suppose just this once," he conceded, turning to face Kaiba directly. "What brings you in here today, son?"

"I'd prefer to do this without an audience," Seto muttered stiffly.

"Hey, anything you want to say to Yuugi's grandpa you can say in front of us," Jounouchi snapped.

"Fine." Seto retrieved his briefcase and took a few icy steps forward, gaze occasionally flickering over Soloman's shoulder to Yuugi and Jounouchi, who were regarding him with open curiosity. He gingerly set his briefcase on the glass countertop, and with a few precisely measured flicks of his fingers the steel clasps popped open with a satisfying click.

Soloman, Yuugi, and Jounouchi gawked when the contents of the case revealed themselves. Insides, glowing with the warmth of gold and the dazzle of jewels, was nestled what they had to imagine was the better part of Kaiba's Duel Monsters card collection, with his three Blue Eyes poised like a soft fall of crystalline snow on the top.

"These—are for you," Kaiba mumbled, shifting the weight distribution among his feet.

"I can't possibly accept this!" Soloman exclaimed. "And if you think this makes up for you destroying my Blue Eyes, you can forget it! That card was of priceless sentimental value."

"I know." Kaiba muttered. "I…understand. Look, just take them, okay?!" Noting that his tone had grown somewhat harsher than he had intended, he added, "I want you to have them."

"I-I couldn't possibly!" Soloman cried as he made a move to shove the briefcase away.

"Hey, wait a second there, Gramps," Jounouchi interjected as he took a step closer to examine the cards in greater detail. "Think about what you're saying no to here. These must be worth a fortune!"

"Oh, I'm sure they are. But that's not the point here," Soloman replied. "I would never dream of selling these cards. But you," he turned to Seto, "You can't be seriously contemplating parting with these cards. A dragon could sooner renounce its scales! They're a vestige of your soul—"

"Not anymore." Seto retorted, earning him incredulous stares from all three. "Please just take them and spare me the diatribe."

Seeing that his grandfather was at a loss for words, Yuugi stepped in. "Are you sure about this Kaiba-kun?"

"Completely."

"But…why?"

Kaiba stared in response. "Just take the cards and stop asking questions."

"This isn't some kind of suicide cry for help thing, is it Kaiba?" Jounouchi asked. "You're not planning on offing yourself, are you?"

Seto rolled his eyes. "No. And if I was I certainly wouldn't tell _you_."

Jounouchi let out an exasperated sigh. "Well now I can't believe you! Is it for drugs? Do you need drug money?"

"No."

"Bail?"

"No."

"Hookers?"

Seto chose not to dignify that suggestion with a response.

"Well, thanks for the cards, Kaiba-kun," Yuugi said, carefully shutting the briefcase and removing it from the countertop. "We'll treasure them."

"Thank you." Seto sighed and turned to leave.

"Wait, Kaiba-kun!" Yuugi exclaimed. "Jou and I are cooking dinner, do you want to join us?"

"What?"

"It's going to be great—soup, salad, sushi!" Yuugi continued. "Jou-kun and grandpa would love to have you join us!"

Seto eyed them skeptically, taking in the sharp contrast between Yuugi's glowing grin and the slightly more perturbed expressions that were storming across the face of Jounouchi and Yuugi's grandfather.

"We've hardly seen you at all since we got back. C'mon, it'll be fun."

And before Seto could concoct any witty replies about how _hardly_ was altogether too often for his taste, he found himself being half-dragged, half-pushed into Yuugi's dimly-lit and oppressively warm kitchen, all the while dodging Soloman's broiling glare.

"Old man certainly does know how to hold a grudge," he mused to himself as he stepped through the doorway.

"Well, you did send him to the hospital," Jounouchi chimed as he trailed behind them.

"So? A man his age probably spends half his time in the hospital as it is. I'm sure he didn't notice a significant change."

"Grandpa is quite healthy, actually," Yuugi replied over his shoulder as he resumed chopping tomatoes. "He says that the gaming business keeps him young at heart."

Seto snorted as he sat down on an aged barstool. "I'm sure he does."

"Kaiba-kun, could you help Jou-kun with the sushi, please?" Yuugi pointed to the other end of the laminate counter to where Jounouchi was juggling stacks of raw fish and sheets of seaweed.

Kaiba eyed him quizzically. "What are you doing cooking here—renting yourself out as an indentured servant to the Moto family?"

Jounouchi was about to reply when Yuugi cut in. "Actually, Jounouchi-kun has been staying with me since we returned."

"Hm. Finally get adopted then, did you? Lucky, I bet the pound was just about to put you down."

"Sour words spoil the cooking." Soloman replied, joining them from the shop. "And every able body helps." He eyed Kaiba with confusion veiled by lingering resentment.

Seto pinched his lips and rose, washed his hands, and joined Jounouchi at the counter, his muttering of 'he's doing it entirely wrong, anyway' just barely audible.

"So, Kaiba, are you going to tell me the reason you're abandoning all your cards? Or are you going to make me keep guessing? You never said no about the hookers, by the way."

Seto scrutinized Jounouchi's pile of completed sushi, picked a piece from the top, and began to re-wrap it.

"I can't fathom how it's any of your business." Seto replied airily.

"Of course it's my business! You're the second-highest ranked duelist in the world! If you retire that leaves more room at the top."

"Maybe I could no longer bear the thought of competing in a field in which you are regarded as a semi-literate player," Kaiba drawled. "If you're one of the world's top-ranked duelists the game must surely be losing its legitimacy."

"Wow, Kaiba, I had no idea that my success had had that profound an impact on you." Jounouchi replied in mock surprise. "I'm real moved."

Seto snorted. "Don't get carried away."

With four sets of hands now at work, the dinner preparations progressed rapidly, and the densely packed kitchen filled with a rich fragrant steam that clung to their clothes and fogged the windows.

"Are you on the run from the cops? Have to ditch your old identity and make a quick getaway? Because I told Yuugi that it was only a matter of time until the law caught up with you." He paused and studied Kaiba closely, biting his lip. "But seriously, those cards are your life. You have to get that we're surprised."

"Maybe I've learned that there's more to life than childish card games." Seto held his gaze steadily, and under the weight of each other's scrutiny they both felt a heat rising in their faces that almost certainly wasn't due to the cooking.

"Well look at Mr. Fancy Hands Kaiba here, all grown up! You're the real picture of maturity, you know, what with all the petty insults. Thinking of outgrowing those any time soon?"

"I wouldn't count on it." Seto smirked.

"You could at least try to be civil, you know?" Jounouchi continued. "After all we've been through together, saving the world and all, you'd think that would have earned me some compassion in that stony heart of yours."

"If I recall correctly, you are the one who threatened to punch my face in." He sighed. "But, fine, whatever, you would find out soon enough anyway: I'm moving to the United States."

The rustic melody of chopping tomatoes, bubbling soup, and sizzling onions suddenly ceased.

"What?! You can't move!" Jounouchi exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"You…you just can't!"

"Compelling argument, as always. Your eloquence never ceases to amaze me."

"When are you leaving, Kaiba-kun?" Yuugi asked.

"End of the summer." Seto replied flatly. He returned to wrapping the sushi, but paused he felt himself under the weight of two heavy pairs of eyes. "What?"

"Six weeks?!" Jounouchi demanded, poorly concealing the mounting stress in voice. "And then, we're just never going to see you again?"

"Is that a problem?"

Yuugi and Jounouhci settled into a contemplative silence. "Well, we've just lost so many people recently," Yuugi began, involuntarily reaching for the recently-vacated space around his chest. 'It's just hard to think about saying any more goodbyes so soon."

"I'm prepared to make it pretty easy for you."

"But don't you have to finish school?"

"That's not really at the top of my priorities list. Kaiba Corp has the capacity to reach a series of grossly untapped markets overseas, and I'm not going to dawdle around in high school waiting for that opportunity to pass."

Yuugi nodded. "We understand, Kaiba-kun. Just promise that you'll stay in touch! And we have to hang out before you leave!"

Seto sighed as he rubbed his temples. "Must we?"

"He does kind of have a point." Jounouchi added. "We've hardly had a chance to see each other when someone's life wasn't on the line."

"I had no idea that was such a tragedy," Seto replied, feeling himself bristle inside him under the sudden onslaught of sentiment and attention.

"Well, _tragedy_ might be overdoing it…" Jounouchi replied.

"I'd better go." Seto cut in abruptly. "Before you two decide to chain me here."

"Aren't you at least going to stay for dinner?"

Seto grimaced. "I think I've lost my appetite." He handed his last sushi to Jounouchi and whisked himself towards the entrance of the shop.

"Hey, Kaiba!" Jounouchi called after him, "you getting rid of any more stuff? Mind if I check it out?"

Seto's "whatever" was almost swallowed in the chime of the doorbell and sizzle of the kitchen.

"He-hey, this is going to be a goldmine!" Jounouchi exclaimed triumphantly. He turned his attention to the sushi that had been shoved into his hand, as tightly and delicately spun as a spool of silken thread. "I bet that jerk is sitting on a pile of awesome stuff that none of us could even imagine."

-break-

Thanks for reading. I own nothing!


	2. Chapter 2

Had events unfolded differently, Jounouchi seriously doubted that he ever would have become a world traveler. He had grown up in a world of clipping coupons, muffled ears, and tip toeing around broken glass and bruised feelings where the world often looked like a narrow window and felt like a resolutely locked door.

Until he had taken up with Yuugi, his orbit had been decidedly small and constrained to but a few of Domino's distinctive neighborhoods. The financial district, continually grasping for the heavens with the ferocity of piercing iron claws, dominated the skyline with all the bulk and majesty of Jupiter. It contained, Jounouchi suspected, a similar vacuousness. Nonetheless, it was the one corner of the city that was almost guaranteed to be visible at night, raging quietly through against the darkness like the last embers on the end of a stamped cigarette butt. For that he gave it credit.

The arty and upscale enclaves, hidden like small oases of roasting coffee, hip music, and fresh-cut flowers among a barren and lonesome desert of chain convenience stores and dreary apartment blocks reminded him of the tiny planets bobbing around the sun, all struggling for recognition and permanence while defiantly staring into the face of the force that both gave them life and was all too eager to destroy them.

The ragged and waterlogged streets of Domino's port-side neighborhoods were his asteroid belt, always on the verge of collapsing into the ocean or disappearing into the ocean with little more than a whisper. The sleepy white-washed facades of the salty fish markets and ramshackle residential buildings just barely concealed the low rumble of chaos that flourished behind tattered curtains and rusted security doors.

The ship factories and a good portion of the storehouses, having largely fallen out of use after the end of the war, were now as cold, rocky, and remote as the planets that lurked in Saturn's shadow. There had been plans for Kaiba Corp to revitalize this area—plans, Jounouchi suddenly recalled—whose cancellation had coincided closely with Gozaburo's death and the transfer of power into Seto's hands. They had now acquired a second skin of mold and weeds and bore the scars of vandalism as they were left to cling to the coastline.

And somewhere in that cacophony of light and noise, nestled in the dense salty fog, was his home—the earth in its entirety. He had been born into a caste whose life trajectory had been set from the start—a few circles around the bottom of the sink before disappearing down the drain pipe, and if there was a building that better encapsulated that sense of bitter resignation he had yet to see it. And yet, for the vast majority of his life this building had been his entire world.

Until Yuugi. Jounouchi smiled inwardly at how many things in his life in his life had been until Yuugi. That boy had certainly done a number of him. Without Yuugi there would have been no crisp beaches of California, no thin air of the upper atmosphere, no encompassing Egyptian heat. There would have been no opportunity to hold his life in his hands, knowing that if it should fade and blink out of focus, it wouldn't have been for nothing. And without the influence of Yuugi on his life, Jounouchi certainly wouldn't be on his current quest directly into the heart of the sun.

He snorted at the comparison. Though, the more he considered it, the more apt it seemed. The people of the city certainly treated Kaiba Corp that way, both basking in the warm glow that the success of the radically revolutionized company emitted and cursing the shadows that it cast.

It was almost enough to make Jounouchi feel bad for the plight of the young entrepreneur at its helm—until he caught sight of his house. Dazzling ribbons of blossoms swam in a rich emerald sea that arched in an elegant wave to the main house, which had adopted a pearlescent shimmer in the early morning light. Jounouchi gagged as he made his way towards the entrance. He had rolled his eyes at the theatrics of Battle City, but the thought of living entrenched in such opulence was enough to make a heavy fist form at the base of his stomach.

"Halt, intruder!" A nasal voice called out.

Jounouchi spun frantically, trying to pinpoint the location of the voice before noticing an elaborate series of speakers and security cameras situated at regular intervals around the industrial-grade security gate.

"I'm not an intruder!" Jounouchi growled. "I was invited here."

The speaker scoffed. "Invited by whom?"

"By Kaiba. Would else would be doing the inviting around here?"

The speaker paused, and Jounouchi could have sworn that the felt the camera narrow in on his worn jeans and wind-swept hair. He set his jaw and stared into the center of the lens, making sure to flex his biceps a few times for good measure.

"Name, please?"

"Jounouchi Katsuya."

Another measured pause from the speakers.

"And what is your business with Mr. Kaiba, Mr. Jounouchi?" Dripping with disdain this time.

Jounouchi paused, biting his lip and running his fingers through his hair. Announcing that he was here to rifle through Kaiba's discards likely wasn't going to win him many favors with the security guards. Then again, the truth probably wouldn't either.

"Um…I'm here for a social call!" He announced, grinning boldly at the camera. "Yeah, Kaiba and I are great buddies, we go _way_ back."

This proclamation earned him a stunned silence from the speaker.

"I will page Mr. Kaiba." It finally replied, not completely able to mask the incredulous tone in his voice. A few tense moments passed and the gate slowly slid open.

Jounouchi made sure to shoot the camera another glare as he passed through. He shuddered as the gate snapped shut behind him, making him feel uncomfortably similar to a mouse that had just stepped into a trap.

"What are you doing here?" Kaiba asked as he opened the door, Jounouchi's hand still hovering above the knocker.

"You said I could come over, remember? Your big moving sale?"

Kaiba narrowed his eyes and seemed to chew his tongue. "I wasn't expecting you to respond so…enthusiastically."

"Well you have a long history of underestimating me, don't you?"

"Apparently." He replied stiffly, retreating away from the doorway.

"Ah, you don't have to worry about me, Kaiba. I'll be _so_ care—" his unfinished thought was consumed by the vacant enormity of the interior of the Kaiba mansion. His bike was left half-forgotten sprawled across the entryway as he slipped inside, suddenly aware of the way his footsteps seemed to resonate along the marble floor. "Wow, this place is huge!" he exclaimed. "But why don't you have any furniture or anything?"

He began prowling around the perimeter of the foyer, peering down the seemingly empty halls and gawking upwards at the smoothly arched ceilings. His voice bounced around the bare walls, eventually finding Kaiba, who was standing rigidly in the dining room encased in a cage of packing boxes.

"I mean, this is such a waste of space! You could fit so much in here."

"Like what, exactly?"

"I don't know…" Jounouchi gently caressed the polished surface of the deep mahogany dining table, trying to determine whether he could see his reflection. "If I owned a place like this, I would turn this room into an arcade…or a…homeless shelter."

"A homeless shelter? Really." He scrutinized Jounouchi quizzically over crossed arms. "That would hardly be fitting."

"It would at least be useful." Jounouchi replied. "I mean, what do you do with all this emptiness?"

Seto sighed. "Largely nothing. I haven't lived here in years."

"What?" Jounouchi gawked. "That makes it even more of a waste. I can't imagine anyone wanting to leave this place." He added wistfully.

"Polite society requires that I retain and maintain the Kaiba mansion for largely symbolic purposes. As such, using it as a homeless shelter or any other chartable entity for that matter, would be entirely inappropriate. However, concerns for the safety of Mokuba and I dictate that we locate our permanent residence elsewhere." He sighed. "I agree though, it is a waste."

"Huh, so this place is really unsafe, then?"

"It's too conspicuous. Gozaburo had many enemies." He paused, then added, "As I do, I suppose."

"Hm." Jounouchi began to pace the maze of packing boxes. "You know, making enemies I can understand. But I never pegged you as someone who cared all too much about polite society."

Jounouchi thought he caught a smile flicker across Kaiba's lips. "As a rule, I don't. However, occasionally even our most steadfast principles must be relaxed."

"What for?"

"Credibilty."

"Oh. Yeah I guess that might be important to you." He continued pacing through the towers of boxes, taking care to avoid those that were more precariously stacked. As he turned a corner he caught sight of the structure from a new angle, and the seemingly random arrangement of boxes suddenly melted away. What was once chaos suddenly struck him as a complex and multidimensional pattern, crafted with as much care and precision as the pins in a lock—merely waiting for the key to turn them.

"Hey…you were building forts in here!" Jounouchi announced.

"That was Mokuba's idea."

"Yeah right." Jounouchi snorted. "We have to do this!"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not? What could possibly go wrong?"

"You could break everything."

"I would not!"

Seto snorted. "Just listen to yourself—so sound like a petulant child. I'm doing you a favor already, so the least you can do is try to behave rationally."

Jounouchi rolled his eyes and staggered back towards Seto at the head of the table. "Fine, fine, you're the boss here. I guess the idea of seeing the great Seto Kaiba step down from his throne and have a little fun was just too much for me to resist."

Seto pointedly ignored this comment, instead gesturing to the boxes that were stacked—in the formation of a barricade, Jounouchi now saw—directly in front of them.

"Anything of interest to you will be in these. Try not to damage anything."

"Thanks!" Jounouchi chimed, taking a seat by the nearest of the boxes, enthusiasm and anticipating simmering in his eyes.

However, once the box was in his hands, he paused.

"So, I get the house thing, I guess—don't want to associate yourself too closely with your dad, I can see that. I don't understand all of this, though. Why hold on to all of this for so long, and just get rid of it now? I mean, I can't imagine you were using these—" he titled his head slightly to read the box's label—"ancient statues all that much before, so why wait so long?"

Seto seemed to momentarily enter a state at the crossroads of wakefulness and dreaming. Eyes slightly clouded, brows crushed in concentration, tongue chewing on unvoiced thoughts—it struck Jounouchi as not at all unlike the trance Yuugi entered when consulting with the spirit of the puzzle.

"Just open the box."

Jounouchi, suddenly acutely aware of the uncomfortable thickness of his fingers, carefully unfolded the cardboard flaps and delicately unpeeled several layers of bubble wrap, gradually revealing a three-foot statue of a man with the head of a falcon, decked in a crown of plumes, and swathed in scimitars and arrows. The surface was as smooth as air and painted with the dazzling luminance of the sun, the refreshing cerulean clarity of the early morning sky, and the magnetic warmth of dancing flames. Clutching the statue in his hands, he was overcome with the scent of freshly picked herbs, dusty skin, and worn linens. He could almost feel the sand caked between his toes and the sweat dripping down his back.

"Is this an Egyptian thing?" He whispered.

"Montu: originally the manifestation of the destructive nature of the sun, he later came to be attributed with the ferocious and devastating nature of war itself." Seto echoed Jounouchi's solemn tone. "It's in remarkable condition, considering it's age."

"It's so light," Jounouchi murmured, lifting the statue closer to his face.

"It's hollow."

"You think Yuugi would be interested in this?"

Seto shrugged. "I figured he's had enough encounters with ancient Egyptian memorabilia to last a lifetime, but you're welcome to give it to him if you want.

"Gozaburo had…a fetish for collecting these types of artifacts. It wasn't out of scholarly interest, either. His interest in other cultures extended exactly as far as it was directly useful to him. The only knowledge that was interesting to him was what he could use to manipulate and blackmail." He began to pace the room. "He brought back these mementoes from each land that he claimed to have conquered—some symbol of that nation's history and strength—and used it as a decoration for his boardroom. That was how he knew he had won—being able to physically remove something from where it belonged and bring it under his dominion." Seto sighed—a long, dark, heavy sigh that seemed to penetrate every cell in his body.

"From the first day I lived here I remember hating them. It didn't matter where I was or what I was doing, every time I saw one of these _acquisitions_, I was flooded with…anger. And fear. Like I was being suffocated, or trampled. Especially this one." He stared over his shoulder at Montu. "It felt like Gozaburo had poured something of himself into that statue, and every time I saw it I wanted to…see it destroyed. But after Gozaburo's death I couldn't bring myself to do it. I tried to, but it seemed that the harder I pushed into it, the harder it pushed back into me." His eyes darkened. "But that's not the case anymore. I can look at it now, touch it even, I could blow it up and feel…nothing."

He hadn't noticed how closely he had drifted towards Jounouchi as he spoke, but once he became aware of his position he quickly withdrew. "So there's really no point in keeping it around," he concluded. "Do you want it?"

Jounouchi shook his head, not taking his eyes from Montu's. "Nah, this type of thing belongs in a museum. He gently placed the statue back in its wrappings. "This thing is probably worth, what, like a million bucks?" He laughed nervously. "Why would you even consider just giving this away?"

"I'm worth tens of billions of dollars."

"So? What does that have to do with it?" Jounouchi replied, somewhat more harshly than he had intended.

"It means that monetary gain is not a motivating factor. Compared to me, all of these items are essentially worthless."

"Huh." Jounouchi made his way to another of the closer boxes. "Say, is that why you're getting rid of your cards? They don't make you…feel anything any more?"

Seto was suddenly transplanted back to cold nights stretched on the bedroom floor, swimming in stars and drinking in galaxies, bathing in the warm smile of time and feeling that no obstruction would ever be enough to mar his path. All of creation had swarmed inside him on those nights.

He was still struggling to form an adequate response when Mokuba swept into the room, pushing a cart filled to the brim with dusty textbooks.

"I am not going up there again!" He announced as he entered. "That room has got to be the creepiest place in the world. Oh, hey Jounouchi," he added. "What are you doing here?"

"Your brother said I could come over and pinch some of your stuff before you guys take off."

"Oh really…" Mokuba pulled an expression that Jounouchi placed somewhere between surprise and disgust, though the disgust, he would later learn, was not directed at him.

"I told you, it's just the pipes, Mokuba," Seto muttered, the exasperation in his tone giving Jounouchi the impression that they had had this conversation several times before.

"Pipes or not, it's still creepy. If you want the rest of the books, you'll have to get them yourself."

"What's so creepy about the pipes?"

"The library has thin walls," Seto explained. "and is also located directly below the hot water heater, which emits low frequency sound waves, believed to be responsible for inducing supernatural experiences."

"You mean the library is haunted?"

"I mean it's the pipes," Seto grumbled as he began empting the cart. "You watch Jounouchi," he instructed Mokuba. "Make sure he doesn't get into trouble." He turned and began to wheel the empty cart back towards the library.

Mokuba sat next to Jounouchi on the floor. "Why would you want any of our step-father's old things? Everything here is so creepy."

Jounouchi shrugged. "I think it's kind of cool." He paused. "Why are you guys moving, really? Kaiba said something about expanding your overseas market, but would you really have to pack everything up and take off for that?"

"Seto is pretty hands-on when it comes to business," he laughed. "As you can probably tell. He didn't even trust any moving companies to help with the packing. I'm sure he thinks the team in America will let everything fall apart if he isn't there to supervise them." He bit his lip and his eyes turned slightly ashen. "Honestly, though, you probably know about as much about it as I do. Seto hasn't told me much about his decisions since…well, since Gozaburo."

"And that's okay with you?"

Mokuba shrugged, not taking his eyes from the floor. "I don't mind moving—Seto and I have never stayed in one place for too long."

Jounouchi's response was stifled by a gasp as he laid eyes on the contents of the box he had opened, which was haphazardly packed with almost every type of antique weapon he could imagine: a rustic and earthy set of arrows, a delicate and springy fencing foil, a gaudy ivory and gold clad pistol, a rusty revolver, and one of the most astounding things Jounouchi had ever seen.

"Wow," he murmured as he extracted it from the box, careful to avoid scraped knuckles and sliced fingers. "This is amazing."

Holding it up the light revealed even more excruciating detail—encased in a web of closely entwined gleaming silver and blue dragons was a samurai sword beyond any that Jounouchi had even witnessed, let along held. The blade shimmered like cold moonlight and was so sharp and electric that it seemed to hum in his hands. The handle was swathed in thick, supple black letter that was elegantly embossed, though in a language that he couldn't read. Jounouchi took a few practice swings, laughing as his entire arm seemed to burn and glow under its weight and energy.

"You think Kaiba would let me keep this?" he asked, demonstrating his most dramatic and jaunty poses.

"I don't know," Mokuba looked up at him in puzzlement, then down at the shadowy box of weaponry. "I've never seen these before."

"Well, let's go ask, then!" Jounouchi exclaimed. "Where is he?"

Mokuba led Jounouchi out of the dining room and deeper into the heart of the mansion. As they inched closer to its core, the warmth and blitheness of the exterior rooms was consumed by a cold, hungry darkness that gnawed at their skin and hissed into their ears. The marble and mahogany surfaces that may have once sparkled in the sunlight were now colonized by cobwebs and thick layers of dust. The unoiled floors groaned under the weight of their feet, as if sensing the presence of an unwelcome intruder.

"This place gives me the creeps." Jounouchi muttered, unconsciously clenching the sword tighter in his fist.

"This place has _always_ given me the creeps," Mokuba commiserated.

Ascending one last staircase, as twisted and tight as a jagged set of teeth, they found themselves in a gloomy hallway lined with resentful faces.

"What…what is this?" Jounouchi stammered as he tried to dodge the angry glares. "Just when I thought this place couldn't get any worse…"

"Each generation of the Kaiba family gets its portrait done," Mokuba explained. "These are the oldest ones over here," he gestured to the series of paintings nearest to where Jounouchi stood.

Jounouchi peered into each set of flat, stony eyes in turn, wondering whether it was the gloom, the painter, or the subjects themselves who were responsible for the skull-like quality of the faces. The further down the hall he slunk, the more he became convinced that this way, after all, a family trait. Each face bore a nearly identical stiff and icy expression. Each pair of eyes seemed to be glazed and far removed, as if their owner had long ago lost sight of all that could not be bought, sold, or destroyed. As if they were simply waiting for death to overtake them and drag them back down to hell, and weren't at all opposed to the idea of forcing Jounouchi down with them.

"Looks like a pleasant bunch," he muttered.

Mokuba laughed, a caustic fiery sound in the unrelenting cold of the hall. "Tell me about it. Seto used to say that if we ever needed to interrogate someone we could just lock them up in here and they would break in seconds."

"Sounds about—" Jounouchi halted suddenly. Staring down at him was Kaiba, a younger, smaller Kaiba, but the effect was still disarming.

He stood posed rigidly, with Gozaburo's thick fingers curled tightly around his shoulder. Jounouchi could almost feel the strain that Gozaburo's grasp imposed on the fabric of Seto's blazer, the ache that would linger in his bones for days afterward—or would have, if he hadn't already grown accustomed to his step-father's suffocating grip.

This painting, Jounouchi noted, as markedly different from the others. It contained only two figures, as opposed to the four or five featured in the prior generations of the Kaiba family. The painting itself also seemed to demonstrate a stylistic departure from its predecessors. Whereas the other painters had maintained a photorealistic quality to their work, the painter of Seto and Gozaburo's portrait seemed to have a relationship with reality that was tenuous at best. Using clever distortions and mischievous exaggerations, the painter had grasped at something more visceral and immediate than reality itself. Seto's withering stare showcased this effect most dramatically. What at first glance appeared to be a recreation of the expression Gozaburo wore revealed something far darker and more intricate on closer inspection. In Kaiba's eyes, Jounouchi saw a bubbling mélange of anger, hurt, and fear. Those were the eyes of a boy who had spent countless nights both battling off and finding solace in his insomnia, thrashing about in bed like a convict in chains, listening to his nightmares and becoming increasingly convinced that one day they would all come true. Those were eyes that were all too familiar to Jounouchi. Those were eyes that he had worn himself far too often than he cared to admit.

In Kaiba's posture he saw a redwood about to be leveled, a canon moments from being melted down. He was the mind of a man with the heart and body of a little boy who had committed every fiber of his being to resisting the torture imposed on him by his oppressors but that knew, in some dark and quiet place buried deep with himself that the battle was already lost—the most sacred corners of his heart had already conceded to what he could not escape.

"This is incredible," Jounouchi said, resisting the urge to reach into the painting and rescue the little boy trapped inside.

"It's one of Pegasus'—before he got famous doing Duel Monsters."

"Why aren't you in it, Mokuba?" Jounouchi asked.

"What are you doing here?" Kaiba growled as he emerged from the library, pushing the newly replenished cart.

"Oh, I was, uh, wondering if I could keep this?" Jounouchi asked, sheepishly holding out the sword for Kaiba's inspection.

Kaiba glared at him, then began to scrutinize the object in question. The moment he recognized it, his eyes grew wide and a tremor passed over his face.

"Where did you find this?" he demanded, voice pale.

"Uh, downstairs in your…box of weapons. Are you feeling okay? You don't look so good…"

"Absolutely not!" Kaiba barked, snatching the sword roughly out of Jounouchi's hands. "Get out. Now."

-break-

For the first mention of the Montu statue, see OK Computer chapter 2. For a more in-depth explanation of "Seto seemed to momentarily enter a state at the crossroads of wakefulness and dreaming…" see OK Computer chapter 3.


	3. Chapter 3

The smell was the first thing to bring the memories back—scalding, sharp, and bitter. The sticky stench of sweaty latex gloves, the faint musk of dead skin, puss, and blood that was impossible to fully wash out of the sheets. The caustic wafts of antibacterial soaps and cleansers that slimed up every surface. No matter how much they sprayed and sanitized, the air still felt dirty, the beds still stank like coffins.

Jounouchi was thankful that at least none of those beds were for him this time.

It had felt strange to him to enter the hospital without being first rushed through emergency. He liked to pretend that the world of extended hospital stays, sometimes interrupted by only a few restless nights curled up at the foot of a bed, was firmly locked behind a rigid, impenetrable door. But sitting at his father's bedside, scrutinizing the rise and fall of his boxy chest, that world felt unbearably close.

He cracked his knuckles and gazed around the room for the sixth or seventh time since his arrival, trying to fix his eyes on anything but the unconscious and helpless figure stretched out before him.

"So, you found yourself incapacitated again, did you? Figures, you and your reckless lifestyle and idiot brain. You couldn't take care of yourself for a minute." He mimicked the words that his father had hurled at him so often when their verbal confrontations had turned hot and harsh, when their roles had been reversed. Or, almost reversed—Jounouchi sporting a limp and a colorful collage of cuts and bruises, his father wielding a disapproving scowl and an arm that was stronger than Jounouchi would ever care to admit. He spoke, however, without malice.

When the news that his father had been hospitalized had reached him upon his return to Domino, Jounouchi had wondered whether he ought to feel happy. He had become, by almost any meaningful measure, an amazing success, outshining both society's expectations of him and his expectations of himself. And in the process of silencing his critics and expunging their doubts, he had silenced the harsh words and suspended the heavy hands of the man who had always tormented him the most.

But upon his first visit to the hospital, laying eyes on his father's immobile face, his heart had not sung with triumph. The moment had hung empty, stupid and silent out before him, and in place of the solid iron moral superiority that Jounouchi sensed he ought to be feeling he found only a gossamer veil of discomfort and unease. If this was a victory, it was cheap and hollow. And if Jounouchi regularly admonished his father with the same disparagements that he had so often been dealt, it was merely for the sake of having a script to follow.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling.

"Do you want me tell you I'm sorry? That I shouldn't have left? I didn't have a choice. I'm sure you would understand if you listened—if you tried to believe me. But you wouldn't have believed me, would you? If I had told you where I was going. And honestly, I'm surprised you even noticed I was gone. I've been longer without going home." He laughed, softly and bitterly. "And now who's the one that can't make it on their own?"

He was interrupted by a soft knock on the door, followed by Shizuka's cautious footsteps to take a seat beside him.

"How is he doing, Katsuya?" she asked, trying to smother the urgency and concern that caught in the back of her throat.

"Same as last time, more or less."

She nodded, then turned her attention to Jounouchi. "How are _you_?" She squeezed his shoulder gently.

He smiled, trying to speak with enough sunshine to wipe the storm clouds from her eyes. "I'm good. Yuugi has a nice place. You don't have to worry about me."

"Of course." She smiled weakly, but her eyes fluttered over to the bed, and a tremor seemed to steal through her spine down to her fingertips.

"Hey," Jounouchi gently turned her face away and stared earnestly into her eyes. "You don't need to worry about me." He laughed "I think at this point I could handle almost anything that life decides to throw at me."

"I know," she sighed. "I know you'll be alright, but…I want you to be better than alright."

He chuckled. "As far as I'm concerned I already am. But thanks for the concern." He ruffled her hair, encouraging her to burrow her face against his chest.

"How are you holding up? And mom?"

"We're fine. Well, she's fine. She acts like it doesn't bother her at all. I only wish she would come to see him…"

Jounouchi sighed, stroking the hair that draped over her sloping shoulders. "I know you do, but if she doesn't want to then that's her decision."

"But how can she not want to see him?! I mean, they loved each other once, didn't they? They loved each other enough to want to have us. How…how can that all go away so quickly? How can she hate him so much that she lets it keep her away, at a time like this?" She whispered, voice bubbling with desolate indignation.

"Maybe it's not hate that's keeping her away?"

"What is it then?"

Jounouchi thought for a moment, watching his fingers weave through the silky waves of Shizuka's hair. This time of year it glowed like amber and wine, the way it seemed to capture heat and set the whole sky on fire. There was still Egyptian sand caked under his nails.

"Maybe," he suggested. "Maybe she's angry at herself. And it makes her sad."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Jounouchi listening to the mechanical melody of their father's life support system, Shizuka listening to the fortitudinous rhythm of his heart.

"Do you think they regret having us?" Shizuka asked.

"Psh, who could regret having you?" Jounouchi scoffed. "That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard."

He could feel Shizuka smile into his chest, though her happiness soon dissipated. "Sometimes I just wonder if they might have been happier—their lives might have been easier…"

"Easier doesn't equal better."

"It's just that, you used to say that mom and dad would have had a better life if you had never been born."

Jounouchi felt a wave of ice rush directly to his stomach as his arms and legs turned cold and rigid. He urgently grasped Shizuka's shoulders and turned her to face him. "Hey, we were kids when I said that, alright?! Don't let those kinds of things change how you feel about yourself. Do you understand?"

Shizuka nodded, but didn't untie the knots in her brow. "So you don't feel that way anymore?"

Jounouchi shrugged. "When does having kids ever make anyone's life easier? The fact is, they didn't get married for the best reasons and I don't think there's much we ever could have done to keep them together. It just wasn't in their nature. The only thing we can really do is be there for them when they need us, and be there for each other."

"I just wish I could do more," she sighed. "He looks so helpless, tied up to all these machines. I don't like it…it reminds me of when—" her voice broke suddenly, and a wave of tears rushed down her cheeks like a river surging over a dam. "I don't want anything like that to happen again! I couldn't…I can't…"

She pulled away abruptly, as if the intimacy of the contact between them was crowding her mind with dark and repulsive thoughts, memories of a time when that connection between them had rattled along the edge of rupture.

"I couldn't bear it," she spoke into the floor.

"I know, I know. That was scary for both of us. But it was a one-time thing! All that is over now…"

He grasped at words with the naïve and helpless confidence of plunging headlong into the dark. His sister, usually so eager to be comforted, had turned her back to him and was limply hugging her own slumped shoulders.

"Was it?" She whispered, a stony shadow creeping into the corners of her voice.

"Shizuka—"

"And how can you know it will never happen again?!" she cried, still refusing to look at him. "How can you know that you'll never be in danger again?"

"No one can know that for sure, Shizuka. The chance of getting hurt is part of life; it's just something that you have to accept."

She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the end of her sleeve, then turned to glance sidelong at their father, eyes beseeching. "I don't want anyone to get hurt," she spoke half to herself.

"I know, neither do I. And I don't plan on it anytime soon, okay? I promise you can look forward to many more years of me being around to beat the boys off of you."

She smiled, a smile as dim and pale as sunlight filtered to the ocean floor. And she was still trembling, as if consciously holding every cell of her body together. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Me either." He gently grasped her shoulder again, surprised, as always, by the delicacy of her bones. "So we'll both take good care of each other. Let's get out of here, okay? Dad's certainly not going anywhere."

Jounouchi didn't realize how cold and stale the air of the hospital room had been until they entered the courtyard, though it was hardly the reprieve he had expected. Peppered as it was with old ladies clinging to walkers and grey-skinned nurses sucking on cigarettes—and lined on all sides with heavy beige walls—Jounouchi could not completely shake off the oppressive gloom of age and illness.

"You never did tell me everything you did in Egypt." Shizuka noted as they set off down the cobblestone path that lined the perimeter.

"You're right." He chuckled. "If I told all that then we would be here all night."

"Well, try."

He sighed and spoke, half to himself, "I don't even know where to start."

When Jounouchi looked back on his life it felt like it had progressed in large, discontinuous, and completely unpredictable jumps. Nothing had happened and then everything had happened, all at once. And when he tried to disentangle the end from the beginning, everything seemed to blur and run together, abandoning any sense of linearity in space and time.

In some ways, then, it seemed easier and more natural to start at the end of the story than the beginning.

"You remember Kaiba? I saw him the other day."

Shizuka's eyes narrowed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Jounouchi stepped off the path and began to meander into the center of the courtyard, only half paying attention to where his feet were taking him. "Well, he was there, you know? In Egypt. He kind of saved us. Well, it was Atem—that was his name, Atem—that really saved us physically. But Kaiba did too, or, the guy he used to be did. And they were kind of the same, in that moment…"

"Katsuya what are you talking about?"

He turned to see that Shizuka had not followed him. She was standing still, rigid, several paces behind. Eyes wide, voice shadowy. 'How much danger were you in?"

His first thought was to shrug it off the same way he let cuts, bruises, and fractured bones roll off his back when Shizuka scrutinized his health. When faced with danger his first instinct was to diminish it, reduce its potency, laugh at it—if not for his sake then for hers. If Shizuka didn't know that he was in danger, or in pain, then he couldn't be. So long as she was ignorant then he was immortal. That was just how things worked, how they had always been.

"A lot." He replied. "We, we did stuff that I never could have imagined. And it was terrifying." He gulped, swallowing the memories of festering shadows and fiery blasts, the sound of death ringing in his ears. "We almost died. All of us. And if we had died then none of this would be here. Nothing."

Shizuka nodded. Her expression remained steady but her hands were trembling, rapidly flexing and grasping at the air as if searching for something to hold onto.

"We re-wrote history, literally." He laughed at the ridiculous sound of the statement. "But we made it better. We made it the way it was supposed to be."

"Better in what way?"

"Well…" Trying to piece together his transient sensory impressions into a coherent narrative was like mining the clouds for diamonds. He sank into one of the low wooden benches, resting his chin on his fist. "Atem explained it pretty well, I think. He said that he was taught to rule without compassion—that everyone in his time had been raised like that. And so when they were in danger, like when they were threatened by Bakura's army, they acted in anger and hate. But that only made it worse, because it set a precedent of defeating evil with more evil, and that continues up until time today—at least it did—it would have—if it hadn't been for us. He said that meeting us taught him a new way of seeing things, a kinder way of treating people, and that encouraged him to rule differently when he went back to the world of his memories. So this time, he didn't defeat Bakura with hate or anger—he got him to change his mind, by emphasizing with him. And that's the new precedent now, I guess. That's the legacy we have now."

Shizuka sat next to him, slightly stunned by the earnestness of his countenance. "Do you think that's true?"

He shrugged. "It's hard to say. I feel…different, though. Ever since I got back, things don't seem the same to me anymore. And people." He shook his head. "It could be a coincidence, though."

She leaned her head against his shoulder. "Do you think it's a coincidence?"

"I hope not." He paused. "But at the same time, it's kind of scary to think that it's true, isn't it? That the entire world is an entirely different place now than it was when we left it. The rules are scrambled. Anything could happen."

"Scary or exciting?"

He chuckled. "I guess it's both. We get a chance to start over."

Shizuka nodded. "I wish mom and dad would see it that way."

"Aw, me too." He leaned forward, lightly pressing his lips to the crown of her head. "Some people you just can't get to stick together, I guess."

They bathed in silence for a few moments, watching the hospital patients stumble along on crutches and listening to the whispers in the leaves.

"You never explained with Kaiba," Shizuka reminded him. "How did he save you?"

"He became the new pharaoh, or his former self did. It was his job to make sure that Atem's memory was respected. He had to ensure that the legacy wasn't forgotten."

Jounouchi cautiously let his mind drift back to some of his final moments in Egypt. The coronation of the new pharaoh—despite its triumphant grandeur—could not escape the shadows of shock and sadness that hung in the eyes and around the shoulders of everyone in attendance. The simultaneous disappearance of Atem and Bakura had been so sudden and so surreal that the people of Egypt largely felt that their newfound peace had not been earned but brusquely thrust upon them. They flocked to the temples, staggered through the streets with weak knees and fluttering hearts, staring hard at the world around them as if in an effort to determine whether they were truly awake.

The absence of a body made the news that much harder to comprehend. With nothing to bury, nothing to cherish and sanctify, the people felt as if they had been robbed, and consequently a wave of indignation and despair had rippled through the populace. There had been whispers that it was improper to appoint a new pharaoh when their former ruler had not yet been laid to rest, but as the days after the war ripened and turned rotten, they seemed to come to a general understanding that their country could not continue to charge into the future without the firm grip and steady hand of a new ruler.

Jounouchi had been inundated by deep blue waves of grief throughout the duration of the ceremony—the scars of the battle were still too sharp and cut too deep for him to see things clearly. The one tangible memory he had—which stood out in such pointed relief that it was almost painful for him to recall—was Kaiba's stricken face. Atem and Bakura might have been gone, but Kaiba looked like he had risen himself from the dead in order to attend—in order to witness the ascension of the former bearer of his soul. His eyes were hooded, his face pale, rigid, and sallow, and until their return to Domino he had spoken only in coarse and turbid whispers.

Jounouchi had locked those memories away—they had been too dark and confusing to look at directly. But now, as he slowly began to chip away at the walls he had built around them in his mind, he found himself thinking of a different kind of box—a box that had sat under Kaiba's bed collecting dust for years, packed to the brim with iron shadows and steel fangs—that he had just happened to have unearthed a few days prior, along with, it seemed, a plethora of heavily suppressed and unpleasant emotions.

"That's a lot of responsibility for one person." Shizuka replied. "To have to make a change so big."

"Yeah." Jounouchi replied. "You've got to wonder how he held up."


	4. Chapter 4

There were few things that broke Isis's heart more than having to shatter the smooth, clear silence that had settled over them over the past few weeks. The sharp cacophony of hatefulness and violence that had punctuated their adolescence was finally beginning to melt into a sweet and soothing rhythm that shimmered in the warm lavender sky and rolled lazily along the banks of the river. For the first time that she could remember, the passing of time was no longer the constricting rope that tightly bound her hands behind her back, but a long stream of luscious ribbon that unfurled at her feet and spread out into the endless, deliciously unknowable distance.

Malik and Ryou moved about the house, as silent and still as a pair of ghosts, speaking almost exclusively in soft, dewy whispers. Or they spent hours out on the sands, dodging the tourists and the heat, flickering in and out of focus on the horizon like two small shadows that were for the first time allowed to run free under the sun. In the evenings they reunited in the in the bustling warmth of the kitchen or on the patio, gazing up at the sky that had long ago been bleached of all its stars.

And Isis convinced herself that she would have forever been content with such a life, where the days chased each other in slow circles and her dreams sparkled—unclouded by nightmares. No longer having the necklace to consult with, she had no way of knowing whether such a life would have ever been possible if it had not been shattered, while still in infancy, by the rattle of a telephone call and dry rasp of a voice that she had longed more than anything to forget.

-xxx-

"I wasn't expecting to find you here."

Underneath the smirk in his voice, Isis thought that she did, in fact, catch a tone of genuine surprise. "Nor was I, Mr. Kaiba," she replied. "But we are all of us at the mercy of life's unexpected turns, aren't we?"

"Not you."

"Not anymore. " She gave him a wispy smile, but the gentle upward curve of her lips poorly disguised the darker emotions that floated over her features.

"Really." He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her face closely. "I don't believe you."

Isis laughed softly. "And what, Mr. Kaiba, have I ever done that caused you to doubt my honesty?"

He snorted. "That's a joke, right?"

She merely smiled, serenely elusive as the petals that shroud a ripening blossom. "I would not have expected to find you here, either."

For the second time in almost as many days, Seto was placed in the uncomfortable position of having to justify his presence in a place that, even he had to admit, he really had no business being.

Returning to the Domino City Museum had not elicited the same tight-throated, nausea-inducing feeling of reentering the Kame Game Shop, but stepping through the door had still filled him with a profound sense of unease, as if he were being mercilessly scrutinized under the dispassionate eye of the world's most exacting microscope. This was doubly true in the rooms that housed the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. Seto had carefully avoided making eye contact with his sunk relief doppelganger; Mokuba, however, had barely been able to tear his eyes from the monument, and had commented several times how remarkable it was that the primary figures looked _exactly_ like Seto and Yuugi.

Here at the far end of the gallery, encased in stacks of moving boxes, Seto felt slightly safer. All the history was tightly packed away, neatly labeled, and locked away from probing eyes and inquisitive minds.

"I'm here to make a donation," Seto replied, sounding slightly less definitive than he had intended.

"Oh really?" Isis's eyes widened in curiosity. "May I ask of what?"

Seto shrugged, stepping aside to reveal the stacks of boxes piled almost up to his shoulders behind him. "Some of my step-father's old…._treasures_. I thought the public might find a better use for them than he did."

Isis stepped closer cautiously, gently extracting one of the boxes from the top of the pile and laying it on the exhibit case besides them.

"Was Gozaburo an avid historian?" She asked, delicately prying past several layers of packing tape and cardboard.

"An avid imperialist and appropriator."

"Ah, I see. Unfortunately, the study of antiquity is often marred by people with such dubious motives. Uprooting artifacts from their native homes and hauling them across the globe makes it incredibly difficult to study them as their original creators intended."

"And how exactly do you reconcile that philosophy with your work here?" He gestured to the glass cases that lined the hall. "This isn't an exactly naturalistic environment for ancient Egyptian artifacts."

She nodded. "A valid point. However, there are factors that you are failing to consider: the first being the instructive nature of museums, which allows the legacy of extinguished cultures to live on, long after their accomplishments might have otherwise been forgotten. Second, we must consider the possibility that—despite the fact that this is not the most _naturalistic _environment—bringing their works here, where they might be seen by you, was in fact _exactly_ what the creators originally intended." She peered pensively into the shadowed contents of the box for a moment before suddenly changing the subject. "Seto, how have you been?"

His jaw stiffened and his hands balled into tight fists. "Fine."

She pursed her lips and scrutinized his face, searching out the faintest crack or shadow in its stolid, stubborn surface. He glared back coolly.

"That's not the impression you gave me when we last met."

"You've always had a tendency to read too much into things," he snapped back. "What are you even doing here, anyway?"

She was silent for a moment, struggling to keep her voice steady. "I wish you would think a bit more."

"What is there to think about?" A threat lurked in the corners of his voice—red and dark and ready to pounce. That kind of tone would often send his subordinates scampering towards the nearest exit, but it only made Isis's eyes darken in icy anger.

"Do you not realize the significance of your position? Can you not conceive of the opportunities presented to you—and what you will be abandoning by refusing to take advantage of them?"

"Opportunities?!" he scoffed. "How can you even—what kind of opportunities could I possibly have? I have—you lied to me!" The mounting agitation in his tone was now attracting curious glances from across the gallery, and he lowered his voice to a frantic, heated whisper. "All that bullshit you spouted to me, and I was foolish enough to listen to you. I have—I have been trying—trying—"

"Seto, is everything alright?"

Seto immediately stiffened and snapped his jaw shut when he heard Mokuba's voice behind him. He turned around cautiously and replied, "everything is fine, Mokuba," voice artificially flat. "You remember Isis." He continued rigidly, gesturing towards her.

"Oh yeah, of course!" Mokuba chirped. "Hey, all this stuff is yours, right?"

"Not precisely. I represent their owner in a variety of legal settings, but I do not own them outright. That is actually the business that brings me here today," she glanced headlong at Seto, "to convey a message from their original owner. If you'll excuse us, Mokuba, that is a subject that I need to discuss with your brother."

"Oh, yeah sure." Mokuba retreated slowly, casting curious glances over his shoulder as he walked back across the hall.

Seto watched him go warily. "Looking for a place to eavesdrop, I'm sure," he muttered under this breath. He turned back to her, the impassioned tumult raging in his eyes just a few moments prior now cloaked in stone. "So you actually do have a reason to be here?"

She nodded. "Were you aware that Industrial Illusions is the legal owner of these artifacts? Pegasus often employed me as the human face of the archaeological arm of his company, but I have no more authority over them than anyone else here today."

"No," Seto replied shortly. "What does that have to do with me?"

Isis paused a moment to collect her thoughts before coming to the conclusion that there was no way to be delicate without sacrificing accuracy. "Pegasus is preparing himself to make his first public appearance since Duelist Kingdom, and to regain control of his company. As I'm sure you're aware, the price of Industrial Illusions stock has fallen dramatically since his tournament; he will have to employ some very clever accounting strategies if he hopes to remain solvent going into the next fiscal year.  
She sighed. "And these artifacts, which Pegasus once viewed as valuable investment and source of artistic inspiration, now strike him as a financial liability. He has asked me to negotiate a purchase with the Domino City Museum."

Seto scoffed from the back of his throat. "He really thinks he can recover from that kind of disgrace?"

"I'm sure people have said exactly the same thing about you."

Seto smirked. "I know they have. The difference then was that I wasn't one of them."

"You should take legal action against him." The words came out abruptly, and Seto was momentarily stunned into silence.

"Why?"

"Why not? He conspired to kidnap your brother, to trap you on his island, to financially and emotionally destroy you…" Like the lighting of a match, a fresh realization suddenly illuminated the farthest corners of her mind, shining light on distant thoughts that had previously been shrouded in darkness. She looked up at Seto with a mixture of confusion and wonder. "Do you not remember…?"

Seto didn't seem to hear her. "And this coming from someone who told me to let go of my anger?"

"I believe I told you to free yourself from the burden of your own antagonism."

"But expelling my wrath on everyone else is A-Okay?" he sneered. "Pegasus is no threat to me. There's no point in pursuing a confrontation."

"He asked me to reach out to you. On his behalf."

"Well, tell him thanks but no thanks. I'm not going to speak to him."

"I told him that was how you would respond," she replied warily. "But whether you prefer to do it in a courtroom or on your own terms, I urge you to do it. If not for yourself, then for your business."

Her words seemed to roll off him. "I don't see the necessity. If a conflict arises, then we'll settle it with corporate lawyers and a negotiator—not a therapist."

"You know it's impossible to move fully into the future without understanding the events of the past."

"_You know_ it's impossible to take you seriously when you insist on talking like a fortune cookie."

Isis's eyes widened, as if in horror, at the turn that the conversation had taken. The last time they had spoken they had seemed to have made so much progress—she had felt the high stone walls that segregated them beginning to rupture, she had seen a few flickers of murky sunlight breaking through the darkness of his outer disposition. But now, everything that had once felt so close was thousands of miles and hundreds of centuries away, buried as deeply in the ground as the pharaoh's tomb.

"Seto, what has gotten into you?" She asked sullenly.

"I—what do you think?!" he stammered, making an effort to keep his voice at an acidic whisper this time. "Everything you told me was such—none of it was right! And Yuugi! That whole spiel about the world starting over and peace and harmony and crap, that was all the figment of some delusional fantasy, wasn't it? None of it meant anything—nothing that you ever told me—"

"Kaiba-kun? And Isis? Wow, what are you two doing here?" Yuugi's voice, chiming with surprise and enthusiasm, rung out across the gallery walls as he rushed to meet them.

"Yuugi." Isis nodded, betraying no glimmer of the anxiety that had gripped her a few moments prior. Her eyes flickered to Seto who, back still to Yuugi, was struggling to swallow his agitation. "I am here conducting business on behalf of Industrial Illusions. It's quite nice to see you again."

"You too!" He exclaimed. "What business does Industrial Illusions have with the museum?"

"We are the owners of this exhibition, and all the artifacts therein."

Yuugi's face dropped slightly, and he began to speak in a slightly muted tone. "And you're closing it?"

"Hopefully not, though that decision will soon be in the hands of Domino itself."

Yuugi nodded, and glanced reverently at the stone plaques and artifacts that lined the walls. "I see…are these yours, too?" he asked, turning his attention to the stacks of boxes.

"Those are mine," Seto hissed as he slowly turned to face Yuugi, only to be taken aback to discover that he was not alone. Standing about a foot behind, close enough to hear without being noticed, Jounouchi stood with his hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes fixed resolutely on the ceiling. When he realized that he had been spotted, he turned to Seto sheepishly.

"Hey."

Seto blanched and spun abruptly around, failing to notice the question that Yuugi had directed at him.

"Kaiba is making a public endowment of some of his family's old possessions," Isis replied on his behalf, eyeing him quizzically.

"Hm, that makes sense, I guess. You really are getting ready to take off, aren't you?"

"That's the idea."

"Yeah, but fortunately it looks like you're leaving a lot behind for us to remember you by, huh?" Jounouchi quipped as he approached them, taking stock of the volume of boxes.

"I would never want to be remembered by these things," Seto retorted, voice sounding as if it had been frozen over.

"Do you think they'll give the artifacts back to your family?" Yuugi interjected. "I mean, they do technically belong to your family, don't they?"

Isis pursed her lips. "Perhaps from a historical perspective—not a financial one."

"Oh…" Yuugi's voice wandered down a lonely trail as he turned to gaze wistfully at the plaques and statues that lined the walls.

Jounouchi took the opportunity to insert himself between Seto and Isis and began to speak to them in a low whisper. "Hey guys, I brought Yuugi here because he's been feeling kind of…down recently, and I thought having a chance to talk to the pharaoh might cheer him up or something. If we could leave him alone with that for a little while, I think that'd be good…"

Isis nodded, Seto rolled his eyes, but they both retreated from Yuugi, who in the meantime had gravitated towards his own likeness hanging on the wall.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you think it's quite serious?"

Jounouchi shrugged. "No, I don't think so. He's just had a lot of changes to deal with I guess…losing a piece of your mind and all I think must be rough. I don't know, maybe I'm just making it worse bringing him here."

"I'm sure Yuugi is very grateful for your support. And how have you been faring?"

"Oh, hah, I'm fine. But I didn't really have so much to lose."

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the brisk and airy footsteps of the head of acquisitions, followed closely by a small army of movers and technicians.

"Kaiba-sama and Ishtar-sama, so sorry to keep you waiting." He bowed quickly, then began rifling through a thick stack of documents that was pinned to a clipboard in his hands. "We were simply overcome with the sheer volume of Kaiba-sama's generous donation. It took our records department quite a while to sort out all the paperwork." He made a few wiry gestures to the movers behind him, who began carefully transplanting Kaiba's goods onto carts and dollies. "The city of Domino thanks you kindly for your generosity." He bowed to Kaiba again, then turned to Isis. "If you follow me, Ishtar-sama, we can discuss your matter in my office."

"Of course." She turned to Seto. "I hope you will reconsider my proposal." The two then disappeared down the hall, leaving both Seto and Jounouchi feeling uncomfortably exposed.

"What is her _proposal_?" Jounouchi asked, poorly stifling the laughter in his voice.

"It's nothing."

"I don't know, sounds pretty serious to me, Kaiba," he chuckled. "Isis's plans usually end up being pretty important."

Seto scoffed. "I'm well aware."

"So, what is it?"

He released an exasperated sigh. "She wants me to 'take legal action' against Pegasus."

"Like sue him?"

"I suppose."

"For what?"

Seto shrugged. "Emotional damages."

Jounouchi couldn't help but erupt in a brief spark of laughter, which he quickly extinguished behind his hands in horror. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean that," he recanted. "It's just that I didn't know you had any emotions up for damaging."

Seto bristled slightly, but didn't speak.

"Do you think that could work for Yuugi and me, too? And Bakura and Anzu, right? We were on the island too, when he trapped us there."

"Why the sudden interest in extortion?"

"Hey, hey, I'm just trying to take advantage of a valuable financial opportunity here."

Seto rolled his eyes. "Of course."

The two stood in silence for a few moments, Seto supervising Mokuba as he perused the gallery, Jounouchi watching over Yuugi as he remained rooted in place. He cast a few cautious glances in Seto's direction, coughed, and swayed slightly before beginning to speak again.

"Hey look, I'm really sorry about what happened last time. I never would have gone through something you didn't want me looking at, only you left it out so I didn't know! I never, well I hope you know I didn't mean anything by it."

Seto's face paled slightly, and he refused to face him. "Don't mention it."

Across the gallery, Mokuba's meandering took him to where Yuugi was standing vigil by Atem's plaque. Though his body was there, his mind seemed far removed, wandering a distant plane that, once full of life and possibility, now rung with a hollow disenchanting silence.

"Yuugi?" Mokuba asked cautiously. "Are you okay?"

Yuugi blinked several times, twitched slightly around the edges, and after what seemed like an eternity managed to re-enter consciousness, as painfully as a fish emerging from the sea.

"Oh, hi, Mokuba."

"That's…you, isn't it?" he asked, pointing towards the image on the wall. "And Seto?"

Yuugi sighed. "Not exactly."

"The spirit from your puzzle."

He nodded. "What I thought of as 'the other me' was really someone else entirely, someone who didn't really belong in this world. He just needed me for a little while to get back on the right track."

"And you helped him?"

"Yes, I'd like to think so. And he helped me, too. It was really each other that we needed." He sighed again, and for a moment his expression seemed to deflate.

"And your spirit was from ancient Egypt?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why did Seto never tell me any of this?"

A flash of concern dashed across Yuugi's eyes. "He hasn't? I don't know. That's pretty strange. I mean, that's basically been our entire lives for the past couple years."

"Hm." They stood in a contemplative silence for a few moments. "So what will your life be now?"

Yuugi laughed in a manner that somehow seemed to convey more sadness than pleasure. It sounded like something shattering. "I'm still trying to figure that out." He paused. "Getting Atem back to the afterlife was like—being trapped in a cave, and there was this big boulder I had to push out of the way to get out. And now that the boulder's gone, I can see that the cave isn't what I thought it was. Everything looks different to me."

"Different in what way?"

Yuugi shook his head. "I'm not sure that I could explain it."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sudden rumble of irate voices. "What part of 'don't mention it' do you not understand?! I could not have made that any clearer to you."

"Sorry, sorry!" Jounouchi cried, throwing up his hands. "I didn't think you could get so riled up by an innocent question."

Seto seethed. "Just drop it."

"Seto?"

Seto's eyes snapped over to Mokuba, noting his position triangulated with Yuugi and the plaque, and sighed inwardly. This was a maze of explanations that he would have to hack through later.

"Let's just leave, Mokuba," he groaned. "Our business here is over."


End file.
